When Washington lobbyists fail to derail regulations proposed by federal agencies, they often find a receptive ear within the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an arm of the White House Office of Management and Budget that conducts much of its business in secret.

Pew researchers discovered that the number of religious groups lobbying politicians in Washington, D.C., has increased 500 percent in the past four decades, from fewer than 40 in 1970 to more than 200 today. With more than 1,000 lobbyists vying for the ears of Congress members, the groups together spend more than $390 million a year ... (more)

For 37 years the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has offered no official, scientific report on the safety of triclosan, a dubious anti-microbial agent found in everything from toys to toothpaste. (more)

A transfer of billions of dollars in federal aid from public projects in Puerto Rico to one of the world’s largest liquor conglomerates over the next 30 years continues to move forward without any objection from Congress.

In case you hadn’t noticed, not a heck of a lot has changed on Wall Street in the last year, despite various banking behemoths’ successful pleas for federal aid to float them out of the recession they were instrumental in creating. Well, that’s about to change—or so President Barack Obama says, at least.

So what was with all of the invocations of the deity at last week’s Democratic National Convention? Stephen Colbert talks about the Dems’ public displays of piety with Lori Lippman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition for America, producing another kind of sacred text to take the Bible’s place as he swears Brown in for her “Colbert Report” testimonial.

Although certain Washington denizens from both sides of the aisle might have been thrown when the two government-backed mortgage finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, hit the skids last week, several of their current and former colleagues had long seen the crisis coming.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a warning across the ocean to Iran during a visit to Washington Tuesday, urging the international community to convince Tehran that pursuing a nuclear weapons program would be a really, really bad idea.

What has the power to unite progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans? According to a compelling article in the San Francisco Chronicle, agribusiness is having its way in Congress, even getting Democrats to cut food stamps to make room for subsidies.

Terry Gross chats up Stephen Walt of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, whose controversial new book, “The Israel Lobby,” challenges the basis of the United States’ staunch support of its biggest ally in the Middle East.

The American labor movement is divided on which candidate to support for president. Its membership is at one of its lowest ebbs in our history. And yet the nation’s unions are more politically influential today than they were in the movement’s heyday in the 1950s.

Now that U.S. pennies are more of a nuisance than a useful form of currency, given their ever-so-rapidly evaporating value (no offense, Honest Abe), and now that it costs the government nearly two cents to make each penny, why don’t we just toss them altogether? (Hint: It has to do with lobbyists.)

In their mad race for money, the front-running Democratic presidential candidates might be selling themselves to the devil. That is, in words more familiar to political debate, they might be delivering themselves into the hands of rich and powerful opponents of progressive policies.

The former weapons inspector who foretold the Iraq disaster argues that the newly empowered Democrats have allowed the Israel lobby to subvert America’s foreign policy by tacitly endorsing war with Iran.

D.C. may be smoke-free, but Congress gets to set its own rules. Unfortunately for nicotine-craving lawmakers (25% of Congress), the Democrats’ victory may lead to change for more than Iraq and the minimum wage—Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi is considering a ban on smoking in the U.S. Capitol.

The authors of the ultra-controversial “The Israel Lobby” report face off in a panel discussion against several of their detractors. It’s a civil exchange, but, to paraphrase J-Lo: “Don’t be fooled by the suits that they got / They’re still flame-throwers from the block.”

The senator who would lecture us on ethics drafted a bill in 2005 that made generous giveaways to pharmaceutical companies—one month after his wife went to work in the pharmaceuticals division of a major lobbying and PR firm.

More and more towns are putting lobbyists on the payroll to tap federal tax money through earmarks (those special appropriations that make their way into omnibus bills in Congress). According to the NYT, “since 1998, the number of public entities hiring private firms to represent them in Washington has nearly doubled to 1,421 from 763.” Bridges, roads, walkways, pedestrian crosswalks… cities and towns are finding that a little bit of lobbying can go a long way.

The columnist weighs in on the controversial report about America’s pro-Israel lobby: The accusation of anti-Semitism is far too often raised in this country against anyone who criticizes the government of Israel.

Two respected researchers have touched off a firestorm with their report arguing that America’s pro-Israel lobby has badly damaged the United States’ strategic interests. Check out this Truthdig report on the reactions from all sides of the debate.